Monday, April 28, 2014

Wasn’t it amusing to hear about the rift between casino
magnate Steve Wynnand actor/ Tequila
salesman George Clooney in regard to his so-called “friend” President Barack
Obama. Typically, like the high strung, naïvechild actors are, George stormed off.

Sure the president is his good friend because of all the
money he raises for the Obama agenda. And he, like other Hollywood stars, make unusually large sums of money
manufacturing, for the most part, mediocre material. They like talking the talk(
especially when someone else is writing the words for them, making them sound
far more intelligent than they are). But how about walking the walk?

They seem to be at
one with every liberal cause. They happily sit at fund-raising dinners
sometimes for as much as $100,000 a ticket. Why not take a portion of these
exorbitant dinner prices and help the poor and downtrodden at the local level
and eliminate the middle men and women who spend most of the booty
disseminating propaganda and consolidating power.

Prior to the heated exchange. Wynn,Clooney and partner Rande Gerber, was discussing future
business opportunitiessupplying Wynn
hotels and casinos with Casamigos Tequila,a company Clooney and Gerber are affiliated with.

Gerberintimates that
the argument was not about politics, “it was about George standing up for a
friend.” Everything about Obama is politics. If Mr. Wynn wished to express his
displeasure with the Obama
administration he has the right. I’m surprised Mr. Clooney didn’t go to DEFCON
1 and assert Mr. Wynn was a racist the default comment when anyone criticizes
this woeful administration.

All politicians have two things in common they want power
and they want legacy. In Obama’s case the subterfuge has reached critical mass.
With his poll numbers dropping
precipitously and his cache abroad diminishing, George has his work cut out for
him if he wants to stand up for his friend.

In the meantime, Mr. Wynn should re-think serving Casamigos
in his establishments. And taking a page out of the Rev. Sharpton playbook , we should all boycott George’s
tequila.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

When your own mother doesn’t want you to run for president
you should heed her advice. Jeb Bush is as likely to be elected president as Harry
Reid is to go through a day without lying.

I cringe every time the idea of another Bushrunning for president is uttered. Nothing
against the man personally.I happen to
like soft, pudgy men who remind me of the Pillsbury Doughboy. But in 2016 we’re
going to needmore than someone who
reminds us of flaky pastry to right the ship of state and I don’t think Jeb
Bush is the candidate to do it. Can you see him facing off against Iron Man
Vladimir Putin. Granted he couldn’t do any worse than our present-day, straw
man president – Mr. Red Line. But the international community will need a
dynamic, American leader who will go toe-to-toe with the likes of: Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping and Bashar Assad and
the aforementioned Mr. Putin.

Moreover, a Bush candidacy
reeks of the dynasty issue that seems to
be of little consequence to American voters in this day and age. Couple
anotherBush run with another likely Clinton run and the underlyingmessage is that the great unwashed need not apply.

We’ve been seeing with more and more frequencythe sons and daughters, nephews and nieces of
former office holders and hacksrunning
for any office that avails itself. Members of the Carter, Kennedy, Cheney, Graham and Nunn families have announced their
intentions tofollow the family tradition and seek office. Add to that the
names Begich, Graham, Pryor, Cuomo,
Landrieu, Brown, political scions all -- who havealready been elected and you get a general idea that our democracy is
taking on anoligarchic flavor.

We know name recognition is important in a political
campaign. That’s the reason a lot of “name” candidates get the nod to run in the first
place. And it’s distressing that this paradigm trumps dedication and a burning desire to
solve problems and help people.

The political class is an emerging entity in the United
States. And why not? It seems politics is the easiest way to riches these days.
Dirt poor candidates like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who had never held any
job other than a political or public one come in with nothing but leave with
much. In local political offices this is
even more palpable. Politics like the old neighborhood butcher shop has become
a hand me down career. But when thinking about a political run your mother’s
advice is worth listening to.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

It’s comedic all the controversy surrounding theshoe throwing incident involving former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Pundits have come out of the woodwork
speculating that the whole incident was staged. For exactly what purpose – who
knows. What difference at this point does it make. To borrowa phrase.

When it comes to the Clintons everything they do seems
calculated for ulterior motives. In this latest episode in Las Vegas a woman,
identified as Alison Ernst, threw a shoe at Madam Hillary who was speaking to a
group about solid waste management. Initially she thought the projectile was a bat. A thrown
shoe actually behaves differently in flight than a bat. Former Senator Clinton
seems to know a lot more about solid wastethan airborne rodents.

But was the whole incident staged? The Clintons have a
history of being accused of staging events. There was the time when President
Clinton was seen on Omaha Beach in Normandy during the 50th anniversary of
D-Day when he, extemporaneously bent down and formed a cross near a pile of
stones in commemoratingall those who
lost their lives in that bloody invasion. We found out later those stones were put there by the president’
staff.

Then there was the time, post-Lewinsky, when the Clintons,
in an effort to save their marriage were seen dancing affectionately close on a
beach in the Virgin Islands, signaling to the world that indeed they had
weathered the marital maelstrom. Was there any doubt that this most political
of marriages wouldn’t survive?

Then, there was the Congressionalhearing about the attack on Benghazi where
our ambassador and three others were murdered. Secretary Clinton stalled her appearance
because of a blood clot many thought was contrived to fashion a plausible
account of events that wouldn’t damage any future political aspirations.

Thefact that her tenure as Secretary of State yielded
meager results was inconsequential. Yet it was applauded by most media outlets
for the sheer amount of miles she logged globe hopping. Abraham Lincoln might
have said of her accomplishments, “they were about as thin as the broth made
from the shadow of a starving crow.”

So, whether the incident in Vegas was staged or real – it
makes no difference. The media will always spin it positively . Of course when
the Iraqi journalist tossed a shoe at George W. Bush it was deemed a great disrespect.
For Madam Hillary it was just another day on a lucrative promotional speech
tour.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

When reports surfaced about the shabby treatment of hotel
workers at the Beijing Westin Hotel by members of Barack Obama’s familyand their omnipresent hangers-on entourage I
wasn’t surprised.

Those of the left-leaning persuasion always seem to be above
the rhetoric they spew for the benefit of the rest of us. The $8350 a night suite the
first lady and her mother luxuriated in was paid by the Obamas we are told. The
concomitant security -- probably ten times the cost of the opulent digs -- was
borne by U.S. taxpayers. Of course this is a hallmark of the profligate Obamas.
They love a free ride.

They talk incessantly about everyone doing their fair share
andleveling the playing field. Then they
vacation, it seems ad infinitum, at the tonier places in the world. Where they
expect to be treated like royalty.

It was no surprise to hear that the staff at their hotel in China complained of being mistreated by the
czarina’s mother as was reported in the foreign press, which has become the
go-tosource for any objective reporting
(dare I say Fox News)about the reign of
the Obamas. I have often thought the adage that a person’s character is
revealed by the way they treat people who cannotoffer them anything in returnis a true barometer of integrity. And
integrity is a gift a person gives to his/her self.

The Obamas mirror the same “white trash” veneer, with the
obvious difference, that marked the early Clinton era. While they are polar
opposites to the Bush,Reagan and Carter eras where class and probity were
palpable to the unbiased eye.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The next time you hear a politician say he or she needs to
be elected so they can help the middle class, I’d recommend voting for their
opponent. But most likely the opponent will be spewing the same schpiel.
Because the only thing a politician can do, especially liberal Democrat
politicians, is to deliver the middle class to the lower classes. In 2008 ,
presidential candidate Barack Obama chose Sen. Joe Biden for his running mate.
Sen. Biden would be entrusted, we were told, with helping and sustaining the
middle class. Six years later I have yet to hear of one initiative as the
middle class continues to contract. I tend to agree with Clint Eastwood, who,
when addressing the Republican Convention in 2012 described Vice President
Biden as a “grin with a
body behind it.”

Pithy platitudes aside, we have not seen any real economic
progress. There is no recovery. Remember shovel-ready jobs? There are just talking
head politicians and wannabe politicians skulking around promising a piece of
the American Dream. Unfortunately, the American Dream is on life support.

It was predicated on the premise that if you worked hard you
could succeed. All you had to do was take advantage of the cornucopia of opportunities
available. A lot of those opportunities have packed up and left and they ain’t
coming back.

One of the most often used lines by candidates is that they
want to give everyone an opportunity to succeed – just as their immigrant
families have. They wheel out their
time-honored family history. The patriarch or matriarch entered the country; penniless,
of course. And worked their way out of the old neighborhood; saved some money,
bought a house; sent their kids to college. Garnered for themselves a piece of
the American Dream. And that’s what they want for everyone. And this time
they’re going to fast track you to the American Dream. With short cuts so it
won’t be so hard this time.

It won’t be a generational wait. It begins to happen as soon
as you cast your vote. They’re promising away the very essence, the core value
of the middle class. That working hard
is your ticket to the next rung on the ladder.

Every time I hearabout all these new, non-existent opportunities to help every one get to
the middle class, it has a strange
similarity to the housing give-a-way disaster a few years back. We know where
that left us. Unless people work for what they get they never appreciate it. And
if you give them something for nothing, they’ll always abuse it.